Only Human
by Crunch
Summary: This time, the world will end in fire. . . R/R


Only Human~ by Crunch  
  
There ARE spoilers for X2- if you haven't seen. . . don't waste time reading my fic, go out and see the movie! What are you waiting for? Also, this is movie verse, because I'm not sure about Pyro's past, so this may clash with the comic book history.  
  
Well, I'm not sure if I should turn it into a chapter fic, or leave it at a one shot. You decide? I'll leave it to the masses, I guess. . .  
  
Disclaimer- I own nothing. Poem by Robert Frost, characters by. someone else. I can't think of a funny disclaimer fight now. . .  
  
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Some say the world will end in fire,  
  
Some say in ice.  
  
From what I've tasted of desire,  
  
I hold with those who favor fire. . .  
  
~*~  
  
I've seen humanity.  
  
It happened in Harlem, on the corner of fifth and Willoughby. Harlem, I swear before God, has some of the best built slums in the world. It's like a bunch of eggheads in eggshell lab coats put their brains together and designed the perfect rat trap for the poor welfare shmucks of the world. Strategically crafted shit holes, complete with tenement houses, brick and cast iron cages, evil smelling hovels, with a pusher on every corner and a roach motel in every crib. And that's where I, St. John Allerdyce, was born. Twice, in fact.  
  
One time, around seven years ago, I was walking home from OLP- that's Our Lady of Peace Middle School, with my collar up around my ears and my fist wrapped around the Swiss piece in my pocket, and there they stood. Their ten, eleven, twelve year old faces twisted into cannibalistic sneers as they circled round and round on the sidewalks like vultures.  
  
In the center of the cock ring was a study in opposites- in one corner, the infamous Mikey McAllister, the brutal, metal chain dangling, stud wearing, fist pounding, seventh grade challenger, with a cigarette butt perched behind his ear and a hungry gleam in his blacked eyes. His minions circled him and his victim, waving their duct-taped night sticks like war clubs and chanting "Rip da bastid's eyes out! Slash 'im, Mikey! Kill 'im! Kill HIM!"  
  
Cowering within the iron band of spectators was a nameless shrimp of a fifth grader, his coke bottle specs, with lenses as thick as the bottoms of shot glasses, cracked and mud splattered, magnifying a very frightened pair of eyes. Who knew what he'd done to bring the wrath of Mikey on his head- probably he'd just been born.  
  
I should've stopped it right then. I should've broke the circle of boy warriors right then and there, before the sidewalks of Harlem ran with blood, as they soon would. But I wasn't the fearless, fire-wielding Adonis you see before you today. I was small and wiry, and I was only eleven. So I didn't. Instead I stopped, tugged on my severed and Beebe Gun blasted backpack, and I watched.  
  
I wasn't afraid. I'm not a coward- don't think that. I never have been, and I'm still not. After all, I got off the plane. . . Iceman and his girl stayed on, but I got off, didn't I? So don't think that I was afraid. What I was was human.  
  
"I'm gonna pound yer ass so hard, ya mudders gonna be scrapin her boy off da sidewalk till next week, ya dirty queer." Mikey's snarl got deeper, and the cries for blood got louder.  
  
And then the first punch landed. The bloody, muddy stalemate came to an end, and Mikey whipped out a beefy slab of a fist, and clocked the shrimp upside the head with such force, his coke bottle glasses cracked in two. The frenzy of cheering from the peanut crowd was deafening.  
  
"Show 'im, Mikey! Beat is ass! Punch 'is scrawny lights out!" And Mikey did just that. All the while, when I wasn't grimacing sympathetically at the fallen fifth grader, I scanned the crowd, as they worked themselves into a foaming, frothing rabble, crying for the kill. And when it was over, and the crowd quieted- that was when the spell lifted. Dropping my backpack, I slinked my way through and stood by the small, whimpering boy, as Mikey lit his cigarette and pumped his iron fists in the air, surrounded by swelling crowds of admirers.  
  
As I knelt down, he turned his bullish face towards me. "Whata' you looking at, you little punk bastid? You wanna get yer ass beat real good?" I didn't. So I looked away.  
  
I guess I can't really blame them. I do, but I guess I shouldn't. They couldn't really help it- they still can't. It's who they are. Human nature cries survival of the fittest. But humans aren't the fittest any longer. . .  
  
Mikey called me a punk bastard. It wasn't the worst name I'd heard, growing up on the blood red sidewalks of Harlem. Before I "evolved" (after that, Mikey never did bother me again) They said I was a lot of things, and a son of a bitch.  
  
Magneto said I was a God. A God among insects.  
  
When he picked me up in the jet on the way out of dodge, I asked him why he'd stopped. He'd asked me why I'd come.  
  
"Because I don't want to die." I'd said. And I didn't. I'm only seventeen- I didn't want to die. People think that death is pretty much a human fear. They're wrong. It's universal. "So why did you pick me up?"  
  
"Perhaps it's because I don't want you to die either. I think you're better, my boy. Never forget that you're better."  
  
And I haven't forgotten. As I sit in the cockpit of the purloined jet, watching the man who's become my father suit up for war, I haven't forgotten a thing.  
  
Magneto smiles, his silver, grandfatherly eyes twinkling beneath that dumb ass Trojan Man helmet. "Suit up, my boy. Now is the time."  
  
I pull the zipper of the battle suit to my chest, then pause as the plane lurches into a landing, a tiny 'what if' tugging at my mind. With a flick of his head, Magneto finishes the job for me, the leather collar tightening around my adam's apple, seemingly of its own free will. I flash him a deadlier-than-thou grin, slip the flame protectors onto my wrists, and fondle my trusty silver lighter.  
  
Mystique rolls by, only now, she's not so much blue and spiky as bald and wheelchair bound.  
  
"Am I. . ."  
  
"The spitting image, my dear."  
  
Before his pale skin melts into midnight blue scales, Professor X smiles suggestively and licks his lips, and it's the most depraved, disturbingly wrong sight I've ever witnessed. Something out of those decades old reruns on TCM. . . X-files, I think they're called, where everything's just a bit off.  
  
But I shake it off. It doesn't matter- I'm not doing this for Mystique. I'm doing it for my new father, for Bobby and Rogue and the rest of team collective-stick-up-it's-ass, for the fifth grader. Most of all, I'm doing it for me.  
  
The old man and his companion, now stretched to her full, lithe reptilian form, walk arm and arm out of the jet, casting a last see-you-soon glance at the Naval Base looming through the Blackbird's windshield before descending the ramp. The promise of thermo-nuclear warheads is dancing in their eyes.  
  
I flick my lighter and follow them.  
  
Who wants to be human, anyways?  
  
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well? What say the masses? Is it ok? Is it crap? Should I continue? I leave it to you. . . *reviewwwww* 


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